Planar branched monopole antenna for UWB applications

Development of a compact microstrip-fed, branched monopole antenna for ultra wide band (UWB) applications is presented. By suitably embedding branches on the top edge of the strip monopole, an UWB response can be easily achieved by merging different resonances. The simulated and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed antenna achieves more than 3:1 impedance bandwidth for 2:1 VSWR criteria. The antenna exhibits nearly omni directional radiation characteristics and moderate gain in the entire band. The proposed antenna is printed on a FR4 substrate of er = 4.4 and thickness h = 1.6 mm and having an overall dimension of 65 × 35 mm2 including the ground plane. The parameters that affect the performance of the antenna are presented and discussed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 45–47, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.22045